COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT ITS IN THE U.S.: SUCCESSES AND CONTINUING CHALLENGES

摘要

Over the past 15 years, many public transport agencies in the U.S. have successfully deployed intelligent transport systems (ITS) that have resulted in increased operational efficiency, and improved customer information and service. While a limited number of agencies conducted detailed cost-benefit analyses during the planning stages to determine the eventual return on investment (ROI), most agencies did not necessarily use the results of this "before" ROI analysis to develop the business case for procuring and deploying these technologies. For the most part, ITS procurement and implementation was influenced more by the availability of U.S. Federal capital funding (which did not require a formal cost-benefit analysis), political influences and/or customer demand. Further, many agencies found it challenging to determine the actual ROI since the technologies were deployed (the "after" case). While the state-of-the-art in technology applied to public transport and the methods used to determine the need for technology have improved markedly over those 15 years, the use of ROI techniques to determine the business case still has been very limited. Further, as funding becomes constrained after the initial ITS procurement and deployment, just a few public transport agencies conduct an after ROI analysis to determine if and when the investment will yield a return.On May 3, 2005, at the ITS America Annual Meeting held in Phoenix, Arizona, over 20 U.S. transit leaders discussed their view of ITS deployment in aa summit meeting. In this meeting, many issues related to ROI were discussed. These leaders concluded that for the industry to improve public transport with technology, the industry needed to better understand the true value, costs and benefits of ITS, as well as to develop and use business cases that contained ROI information. Given this situation in the U.S., the objectives of this paper and presentation are to: ? Describe the techniques used to conduct the before cost-benefit/ROI analyses conducted by several U.S. Agencies; ? Describe the challenges associated with conducting before and after cost-benefit/ROI analyses; ? Discuss the results of several cost/benefit analyses conducted in the US and abroad; and ? Recommend approaches for U.S. agencies to conduct ““before before”” and ““after after”” ROI analyses based on experiences outside of the U.S.